


The Hatchetfield Youth Club

by xLion_Heartx



Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Ethan is top tier big brother, Fluff, Hot Chocolate Boy is Oliver, I fuck around with Black & White rules, I mess with ages a little, Implied/Referenced Abuse, More tags when I figure out where this plot bunny is going, Multi, Smoker Teen is Danny, Sort of Graphic Violence, Webby sees disaster, and is like shit, its tgwdlm sooo yeah, these tags are a mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23086675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xLion_Heartx/pseuds/xLion_Heartx
Summary: Blue blood. Bad songs.That’s what Hannah said. Now there’s people singing, killing other people, and singing some more - an apotheosis.Ethan isn’t quite sure what to do, but all he knows is he’s going to be the best goddamn babysitter, friend, and boyfriend Hatchetfield has ever seen.
Relationships: Alice/Deb (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals), Ethan Green & Hannah Foster, Ethan Green & Hot Chocolate Boy, Ethan Green & Ted, Henry Hidgens/Ted, Hot Chocolate Boy & Ted, Lex Foster/Ethan Green, Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Comments: 23
Kudos: 147





	1. Bad Musical Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Bitches be leaving her account for a year and coming back purely for her love of this one musical character.
> 
> It’s me. I’m bitches. And Ethan Green is my son.

_You’re one with the Black and White now, Ethan. Good luck._

Ethan Green shoots awake with a pounding headache and an alarm vibrating from under his pillow. He rubs the sleep from his eyes, trying to recall the dream he feels like he should vividly remember; his phone continues to vibrate, no noise escaping it for the sake of not inducing the hungover wrath of his mother who’d (once again) been blackout drunk last night. Maybe he’ll crash in Ollie’s room tonight.

At the thought of his dorky, thirteen-year-old cousin, he remembers exactly what he’s doing today: babysitting. Oliver used to argue that he didn’t need a babysitter at his big age, but as Ethan got closer to skipping town, the kid had taken any excuse to hang out with him. But it isn’t just Ollie he’s watching today, he’s watching Hannah too, his girlfriend Lex’s baby sister (baby being a broad term, the girl’s nine she’s not quite a ‘baby’ anymore). He likes Hannah, she’s quirky, shy, but also a sweetheart to the people she’s comfortable with; Ethan has the pleasure of being one of those people.

He pulls the phone out from under his pillow and puts a stop to the incessant buzzing, checking the time to find he has about a half hour before he needs to leave. Good enough.

He changes quickly, jeans, sneakers, a leather jacket and one glove - the other went missing months ago - makes up his his ensemble, and he finishes it by tying a yellow flannel around his waist.

He types a quick text to Lex, making sure she’s awake, and sends another one to his Uncle Ted who he knows will be awake given he’s got work soon. He shoves his phone into his pocket when they reply, and folds his lucky hat into the inside pocket of his jacket before zipping it up and creeping out of his room.

His jalopy sits out on the drive, so he tiptoes around the creaky spots on the stairs and sneaks through the living room where his mother is still passed out. He tries to stifle the jingle of his keys and the squeak of the door, but throws his carefulness out the window the second he hears her shift, bolting out of the house and slamming the door behind him.

Lex’s place is closest, so he heads there first, parking up outside the rundown trailer and sending another quick text to let her know he’s there. The next moment he sees her, ushering Hannah our the door and looking as beautiful as she always is, even in her Toy Zone uniform. Hannah crawls into the backseat first, drawing his attention away from his girlfriend as the nine-year-old leans forward.

“What’s shakin’, Banana?” He turns in his seat and smiles, lopsided and genuine, “is it a good day or a bad day?”

She chews at her bottom lip, looking small in her t-shirt and overalls, “bad day- blue blood, bad songs-“

Something about the words buzz through him in a way they normally don’t, usually he manages to entertain the idea of her imaginary friend while also trying to keep things in the realms of reality, but today the words, the phrases, the idea of Webby feels so strangely real right then and there.

He rubs the back of his neck, digging his nails into his skin to pull himself back to reality, “yeah? Guess we’ll have to avoid a musical then, won’t we?”

The passenger door slams closed and Lex lets out a tired sigh, leaning back into the seat and looking at him; he can see a bruise on her arm, the marking matching a hand, and he feels his blood boil just a bit.

“I am _so_ not in the mood for this shift,” she all but whines, eyes pleading as if he’s going to be able to save her, “sorry to drop Han on you last minute.”

He shakes his head, last minute meant a frantic phone call last night before he fell asleep, “don’t worry about it, babe, Banana and I are gonna have tons of fun with Ollie today.” He offers Hannah his fist for her to bump hers against it, she does before leaning back and buckling herself into the seat behind Lex’s.

His girlfriend beams exhaustedly, leaning over and pulling his face towards hers to kiss him hard and quick, “you are amazing.”

He grins again.

They get to his Uncle Ted’s apartment building not ten minutes later, the man himself and the lanky figure that is Oliver bustling out with jackets on to shield them from the early morning breeze. He rolls down his window to greet them, Ollie clambering into the seat behind his with a yawn and a shuffle of his glasses; Ted comes to the window, leaning down and smiling just as tiredly as the rest of them.

“Hey, kid, thanks for occupying him today,” the man says, reaching into his pocket and shoving a wad of cash into Ethan’s hand, “get some breakfast for once in your goddamn life.”

“Uncle Ted-“

He holds his hand up, “nope. Take it, go get food, you can’t be dropping your girlfriend off at work on an empty stomach.” Then he’s climbing into his slightly-less beat up little car and heading off to the office to do... whatever it is office workers do.

He twists in his seat again, looking back. Hannah looks like she’s half asleep already, but Oliver seems tenser than usual, pulling at the sleeves of his brown jacket and biting the inside of his cheek.

“You alright, Ollie?”

The boy nods a little too fast, “yeah- just- had a weird dream last night.”

Ethan reaches back to pat the side of his knee, “just a dream, buddy, you want breakfast?” He gets a nod and shifts around to start driving again.

Lex looks up at the two through the rear-view mirror, grinning, “you guys wanna go to Beanies?”

The pair of them have two equally loud exclamations of protest, Hannah’s mumble of _poison_ is almost lost to Lex’s beconings to calm them down, but Ethan catches it, and like the words before they buzz beneath his skin.

He shares a look with his girlfriend, then instead of heading for downtown, he turns down the roaad to go straight to the mall; there’s a diner across the street, Grace Chastity should be working and then Lex can head to her shift even if the kids haven’t finished eating when she needs to.

When he pulls into the mall parking lot it’s mostly empty, cars a scattered along rows from employees coming in to open up. He parks in one of the corners closest to the turn in, an easy spot to escape from in the late afternoon when it’s much fuller. They all climb out, Hannah and Ollie stretching their legs while Lex circles the car and allows Ethan to throw an arm over her shoulders, pulling her close and kissing her forehead; the kids come around to the front of the car to join them, Hannah grabbing Lex’s hand and Ollie shoving his hands in his jacket pockets.

He gives a check of his car, making sure it’s locked, and starts across the quiet road to the just as quiet diner. Hannah usually has the same thing whenever they go out to eat, so only Ollie needs to tell them what he wants given the only thing he has every time he goes anywhere is hot chocolate. The bell above the door jingles as they enter, and the girl at the counter looks away from the phone she’s hiding in her pocket and shuffles with her glasses.

“Morning guys,” Grace greets, flattening down her apron and smiling as Ollie and Hannah dash to one of the window booths. She looks about as tired as he expects her to, no forced brightness or cheer, just natural friendliness, “what will we you be ordering today?”

Lex and Ethan collectively rattle off the four orders and Grace smiles, writing it down and totalling the whole order. Ethan hands over half the wad of cash in his pocket and watches her count it up before handing a few coins back in change.

“Alright, I will get this to you as soon as possible. Boss is running late taking her roomie down to Beanies, you know, the usual.”

He doesn’t, but he nods anyway, taking the table number stand and leading Lex over to the table the kids had picked.

Oliver shuffles over to sit by the window opposite Hannah so that Ethan can slide in next to him, Lex dropping into the cushy seat next to Hannah; the sisters share a side hug before the younger goes to staring out the window. He and Lex hold hands across the table, he’s running his thumb over her knuckles while watching the other empty tables in the diner; with it being so quiet, it doesn’t take long for Grace to pop her head back out with two trays balanced on her hands.

She skips over effortlessly, placing one tray down to pass out the plates and mugs with her now-free hand. Ollie gets his hot chocolate, Lex has a black coffee, and Ethan and Hannah have matching banana milkshakes; their food is varied but each plate seems like the perfect fit and the perfect size for them (no matter how much the pastel yellow milkshake juxtaposes Ethan’s outward image).

Just as Grace places Hannah’s small stack of pancakes in front of her, there’s a melodic call from the back.

“That’ll be Lisa,” she smiles, tucking the trays under her arm, “thank you for dining with us this morning and have a lovely meal.” She dashes back through the quiet restaurant and disappears behind the counter again.

Ethan crams his mouth full of food to avoid having to drag a conversation out of everybody. With the kids feeling weird and Lex trying to wake herself up for work, they only really need to sit and absorb the mere presence of one another; he’s pretty bad with small talk anyway, awkward, stilted, apparently the first thing to interest Lex back in sixth grade that wasn’t their matching abdomen bruises.

Over the course of the next hour or so the parking lot fills and so does the diner, the more people that sit with coffee and breakfast, the tenser Hannah seems to get, and by extension the tenser Ollie gets too. Hannah’s never done good with crowds (they can thank the autism for that), and Ollie’s always had a knack for sensing people’s moods, he’s never mimicked them quite as much as he has today though.

At some point, Lex checks her phone, groaning at the time and looking disdainfully in the direction of the busying mall, her shift starts in ten minutes.

“We’ll come pick you up this afternoon, babe,” Ethan says, digging into his pocket and passing her a couple dollars for her to grab a coffee to-go, “you’ll be alright, it’s not like it’s Black Friday or anything.”

She sticks her tongue out teasingly, wrapping her arm around her sister to plant a kiss on her hairline then leaning across the table to ruffle Ollie’s hair and tilt Ethan’s chin up for a kiss (they smile into it as the kids _ew_ dramatically). He watches her slide out of the booth with what he’s sure is a lovesick look, keeping his eye on her as she slides into the line at the counter and gets her simple coffee order in.

“Have a **La Dee Dah Dah Day~** ” the words roll off Grace’s tongue in series of music notes, her former mood suddenly shifted for unnatural brightness like the LED lights lining the ceiling.

The slam of Hannah’s hands on the table is like the pause in the diner activity, nobody looks over except Lex, and even as Ollie yells for her not to, she takes a sip of the coffee. She isn’t the first to collapse, but she drops at the same time the family two tables away from them do, their mouths leaking blue; suddenly Hannah’s words echo in his head again and Ethan’s heart picks up speed.

He calls out to her, at least he thinks he does, sliding out of the booth as Hannah and Ollie scramble to his sides, holding his hands and keeping his feet cemented to the floor, tears are brimming in the eyes of the former and shallow breaths are escaping the lungs of the latter.

The collapsed people start to shift, a harmony being led by Grace reverberating across the diner that might have sounded angelic in any other context that wasn’t this one. People start to stand, some jumping on tables and dancing some choreography that naturally would have taken weeks to learn, Grace slides amongst the scattered people, Lex coming up beside her with that voice Ethan loves so much; even he can’t understand what’s happening right now though, and the blue dripping from her chin is distracting.

“Bad songs! Bad songs!” Hannah all but screams, tugging at his arms until they’re starting to get cornered and he rips himself out of his distraction, he can’t focus on Lex right now, Hannah and Oliver are his top priority.

He grabs the closest liftable chair, launching it at the window behind him and watching the glass shatter into pieces, the chair tumbling into the empty road. They escape from the diner, Ethan trying his hardest to keep his thoughts in order, but people are starting to join the forming group pooling out of the diner.

The words they’re singing are overly bright, people jumping like years-trained ballerinas, and maybe Ethan wouldn’t find this all so scary and sinister if he hadn’t looked across to the parking lot to see someone _rip another person’s guts out in front of his car_. The kids are holding onto each other behind him, backing up down the road towards downtown, he sees Lex again, and he can’t help but _try_.

“Lex-“ he chokes, eyes growing wet at the LED happiness in her eyes and movements, “ _babe_!” She doesn’t react.

He stifles his tears, he can’t cry now, not when he has the rest of his family to look after. He spins and sprints, Hannah’s sobbing on the floor and he can’t see Oliver anywhere; he gets to her before the singing crowd, scooping her up and making sure her elbow and palm grazes bleed red as he settles her on his hip and hides her face in his shoulder.

He takes off down the road, pushing back the panic at the sudden flash of Oliver’s small, lanky body dancing amidst the parking lot crowd with red-turned-blue blood leaking out of a wound on his head. He ignores it. He ignores Ollie, and Lex, and focuses solely on the sobbing nine-year-old in his arms as he leaves the dancing crowd to attack anybody remaining in the mall.

He follows the road, thanking every god out there that it’s clear when he barrels into the closest, quietest alley between the tall buildings of not-yet-downtown. Hannah’s still crying, gripping him like a lifeline and he squeezes her just as hard, his lucky hat pressing against his abdomen.

“Okay, Banana,” Ethan pants, trying to blink away the tears starting to spill from his eyes, “we’re gonna be okay, I promise.”

He fucking hopes he can keep that promise.


	2. Stuck Downtown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me ? Updating so soon ? Unheard of.

Ethan manages to catch his breath after several quiet moments of Hannah sniffling into his shoulder and him silently letting his own tears spill down his cheeks while Hannah can’t see. He runs a hand down his face, wiping away the sticky remains on his cheeks and exhaling slowly; he needed to let that out, and with Hannah calming down he thinks she did too. He shifts, looking down either end of the alley before bending down slightly to put Hannah down, she only tightens her hold of him, squeaking almost defiantly.

“It’s okay, Banana,” he soothes, his voice soft and still raw from swallowing his sobs, “I’m not gonna leave you.” He can’t, not with whatever’s happening out there, not when he’s seen people with such violent wounds that should have killed them.

It takes her a couple second, but she does untangle herself from him to place her feet on the ground and letting her arms drop to her sides. Her eyes are red and her eyelashes damp, her hands and elbow grazes aren’t really bleeding anymore but the skin is starting to look sensitive and bruised. Ethan regrets not having any bandaids on him.

He tilts his head to stretch his neck, slowly as Hannah watches him, her hands not too far away for him to grab if they need to run again. Her head keeps flicking between each end of the alley and goosebumps appear on her arms as a breeze blows through the walled channel.

“Here.” He unties the yellow flannel from around his waist and kneels down to her height, he wraps it around her shoulders and watches with a small smile as she shoves her arms through the too-long sleeves and snuggles into the fabric, it almost reaches her knees but it’ll keep her warm and stop shit getting into her cuts.

“Thank you,” she says, managing an equally small smile in return, but then it falls again, and despite her practically crying all the tears she had out not seconds ago, her eyes well up again and she grabs his leather sleeve in an iron grip, “bad songs- they’re gonna get us, Ethan, they-“

His hands come to cup her cheeks, “no no no no,” he speaks quickly, shaking his head and wiping away her new tears, “I’m gonna keep you safe, I mean it, Banana.”

She looks like she wants to believe him, to believe him so wholeheartedly but he knows it’s hard after he couldn’t even keep Lex and Ollie safe. He doesn’t even know if he can believe himself- Uncle Ted’s going to fucking murder him if his mom doesn’t find out how useless he’s been and do it herself, if she’s even herself anymore.

He jolts back to reality when warmth covers his cheeks, Hannah - hands covered by the flannel sleeves - has stopped her tears to look at him, holding his face like he holds hers.

“I trust you,” she mumbles, squishing his cheeks in a way he’s done to her teasingly before, “you’re safety.”

Jesus this kid is going to make him cry again.

He exhales a quiet laugh, pulling his hands away from her face as she does his and patting down his pockets, “just to be safe though,” out comes the lucky hat, old and worn and gifted to him by someone so unexplainably special, “you’re getting the magic hat.”

Her face scrunches up and for a moment it’s like they’re just sat on the floor of his room, “it’s not magic.”

“Uh- yeah it is, Banana,” he scoffs, playfully rolling his eyes, “this hat is bestowed with the power of Greyskull and it will so totally keep you safe.”

She timidly takes it out of his hands, looking between it and him, “you mean it?”

“Cross my heart.” He figures leaving out the ‘hope to die’ bit is the smart decision given their situation.

She puts the hat on backwards, flattening it down on her head and stepping into his free arms to hug him. It’s a proper hug, not her digging her nails into his shoulder because if he dropped her they’d both die. No, this is soft, meaningful, he tries to project ever bit of love into this hug as he can, to let her know that if she has any doubts despite her words, he will take care of her. With or without Lex, he supposes.

“Should we call Uncle Ted?” She whispers, not letting go even as he stands and straightens out. He lets her hang off his neck for a minute, giggling quietly before supporting her with an arm.

He digs into his other pocket, pulling his phone out and turning it on. His eyes linger on his lock screen a moment: it’s a selfie Oliver and Hannah had taken together about a month ago, Oliver sitting cross-legged in front of a sofa with Hannah’s nose and eyes peeking out from the bottom of the screen, one arm is visible, reaching up with a stim toy in her grip and a finger pointing at Oliver’s bow-tie like one of those Eiffel Tower perspective photos.

Hannah rests her cheek against the crook of his neck, looking at the picture as he unlocks the phone, his home screen doesn’t make him feel a whole lot better, some fluke of a picture he’d taken during his Uncle’s Fourth of July get together in the park when Lex had a sparkler and was grinning for the first time in days.

He sighs, sliding over a page to open his contacts when the call screen activates on it’s own. He panics for a mere second, but his phone’s still on silent, vibrating in his hand as he sees the name ‘Danny’ glowing at the top with the contact image of Ollie’s neighbour and best friend. The kid is fourteen, part of the Smoke Club purely because Ethan was when he was still in school, he sticks around now mostly for Deb and Nicola - a sixteen year old girl who is hands down the worst influence the youngest of the group could’ve been left with

He and Hannah share a look, but he walks a little further into the alley and presses the big, green, answer icon and holds the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

The voice most certainly isn’t Danny’s, it’s soft and panicked, feminines for sure, and it takes Ethan far too long to realise who it is.

“Holy shit,” the expletive escapes him along with a breath of air, “ _Alice_?”

“Oh my god,” her own relief is palpable, “Ethan thank fucking god.”

“Why are you calling on Danny’s phone?”

He hears her sigh and mutter something away from the phone’s microphone, “I stayed at Deb’s last night on impulse and we don’t have the same phone, mine’s out of battery so I can’t call my dad, you were the first person I thought of that Danny has the number for.”

“Where are you? What happened? Who are you with?” He doesn’t mean to question her so fast, but hearing someone he knows (however little) still alive is the most relief he’s sure he’s going to get anytime soon.

She’s silent for a minute, presumably looking around wherever she’s hiding, “I’m with Danny, we’re up on some outside fire escape near school,” she inhales, wet and shaky, “Deb and I had come out, met up with some of the Smoke Club and then these people started singing all around us- I- I don’t know what happened, I was freaking out but I grabbed Danny and then Deb got taken by some homeless guy... we lost Vi and Nicola, but I saw Deb singing with the crowd earlier and I didn’t know what to do, I-“

“Hey, hey, it’s alright. It wasn’t your fault, I have no idea what’s happening either but I’m with Hannah now, I don’t think we’re too far from school so we can come meet up... Lex and Ollie, they- uh- they got grabbed too.”

He knows she knows Lex, and while she probably doesn’t know Ollie (she’s never met him) he knows Danny talks about him a lot, and Ethan usually has a story or two to share about his little cousin whenever the extended Smoke Club met up outside of school. Alice makes a noise of sympathy, and, distantly, he can hear Danny throw something from the fire escape, only to get quietly scolded by the girl he’s with.

She sniffs, “okay, the closest ‘landmark’ I can see is that vintage bookstore Grace Chastity goes to.”

He nods even though she can’t see, “yeah, I know where that is, we’ll come find you but if you have to, run.”

They mutually hang up and he has to take stock of the fact that he’d lied his ass off just to make her feel better, he has no clue where the hell a vintage bookstore near school was, he’d never gone down the main roads to go home, and he’d dropped out last year so it could be a new store for all he knew.

He shoves his phone back in his pocket and rubs his chin, “hey, Banana?” He gets a better hold on her and starts crossing to the other side of the alley, he can’t believe he’s about to ask this, “does Webby know how to find Alice and Danny?”

She tilts her head, eyes clouding over for a second (his heart still skips a million beats at the vacant look on her face) before she blinks and smiles a little, nodding, “she says you should’ve let them come to us but she knows where they are.”

He has to nod, after Hannah was right about the blue blood, the bad songs, and the poison, he feels only slightly less insane putting his faith in an imaginary spider from outer space. After today, he doesn’t know if he can really doubt much right now.

He keeps her gathered in his arms, the texture of his flannel around his neck keeping him grounded and focused and _listening_ because he knows that at any second he’s going to see images behind his eyelids of those people getting ripped open and Lex’s mouth bleeding blue, and Ollie’s glasses cracked alongside his head. Hannah seems to know what’s going on, Webby must be helping her cope and in a way she’s helping him, squeezing him in a hug to bring him back to reality and give him the next instruction, to point down another alley when echoes of musical words drift down from the main road and they slide behind a police cruiser to head down the backroad towards school.

Hannah’s getting tired, having cried herself into exhaustion earlier and now wrapped up warm she keeps blinking herself awake, he can see her resisting the urge to use his shoulder as a pillow and he so wishes he could just let her rest, but they need to be safe, and if that comes in the form of sitting with his cousin’s best friend and a high school friend’s girlfriend on a staircase off the ground so be it.

Hannah points out the vintage bookshop that’s halfway down the road they come out on, hiding a yawn behind her arm, that doesn’t stop Ethan yawning too; he doesn’t really feel tired, but he might be shoving that into the box with his sadness right now, locking it away to either let it out later or never let it out ever again.

He crouches down behind some dumpsters when he catches sight of some fleeing cops, arms flailing above them in a distressed fashion far from the practiced choreography he’s seen from every, uh, infected(?) person so far. He and Hannah watch them disappear into the bookshop (which, _shit_ , Alice and Danny might already be gone), he places Hannah on the ground, taking her sleeved hand in his so that they can stay quiet and close to the ground. She holds on so hard he’s worried she’s going to break his bones, her other hand up and holding the hat to her head, at least she’s finding some solace in that thing.

They stop a building or so away from the bookshop and he scans the nearby building, from where they are he can only see three fire escapes, one green, one yellow, and one red, he can’t see Alice or Danny on any of them. He tugs Hannah lightly, dashing across the street to stop under the green one; god they’re not here, where the fuck could they have gone? Maybe the school? He doesn’t want to think Alice would be dumb enough to corner herself in there, especially having Danny with her, but if there are more cops than just the two in the bookshop maybe they could’ve gotten herded there against their will?

“Ethan, Hannah.” The quiet call comes from above then and their heads whip up to find Alice and Danny waving from two floors up.

Okay... they were definitely _not_ there when he first looked.

Ethan doesn’t have time to really think before Danny’s scuttling down and quietly lowering the squeaky ladder down to them, he has Hannah go up first and follows after, his heavier body making much more noise against the old metal, and he’s much less careful about pulling the ladder back up.

Danny hugs him, long and hard, Alice must’ve told him about Oliver. He leads them up to where Alice sits on the staircase, skirt flowing out as she stands and pulls him into a hug too, stood on the stair above him to match his height. He and Alice don’t know each other too well, given she started dating Deb long after he’d dropped out of school, but they’re sharing the same pain right now, and he finds himself letting quick tears fall into the fabric of her cardigan while hers fall into the same place Hannah’s had been on his leather.

They pull away from each other, sharing a thankful smile that they both managed to get that out with each other instead of the kids, the kids who draw their attention next with little tugs on their hands.

Alice sits back down and he squeezes into the spot next to her, Hannah bundling herself in his lap after shyly introducing herself, she falls asleep almost instantly, head under his chin and arms cuddling one of his. Danny situates in the stare below them, leaning back and into the small gap between his leg and Alice’s, he rests his head on the girl’s knee and she gives him a soft smile, running her hand through his hair until his tense shoulders drop and they have a moment of peace all together.


	3. In My Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up shorter than the others but it’s mostly a ‘here’s important info’ and transition kind of chapter.

It feels like they sit there for hours, so many quiet hours in a place Ethan feels like they should be spotted, but whenever any singing groups pass through they’re silent and the singers pass by. Hannah gets her sleep, Danny does for a little while too, though, he still jolts awake a lot sooner than Hannah does; he can’t sleep, doesn’t even think of it, and neither does Alice, they’re the responsible ones right now, Ethan’s the adult (barely) so it’s his job to keep everyone here alive, especially after he failed the first time.

When Hannah does wake up she doesn’t talk for a while, stays wrapped up in his lap and makes sure his arms stay around her. She mumbles a few things: _soldier_ , _hermit_ , and _in his head_ , but even when he tries to get an answer out of her she can only shrugs - guess she doesn’t always know what her own mumbles mean either.

Before he knows it there’s a weight on his shoulder and Alice is sighing.

“Woah,” Hannah lets go of one of his arms so he’s able to place it on Alice’s back to steady her, “you okay?”

She laughs a little, it’s breathless as if she’s run ten miles or something, “yeah- just- I think four people’s my limit.”

He raises an eyebrow and frowns a little in confusion, “and... that means?”

“She’s the one hiding us,” Danny says, standing up and skipping to the bottom of the stairs to turn and look at them, “Webby’s helping, sort of, but I guess she can only handle so many people before it takes a toll.”

Wait- Webby? The thing Ethan has been thinking is Hannah’s imaginary space-spider friend that he only put his trust in those hours ago (yesterday? It’s sort of dark now) because he was freaking out and just wanted Hannah to feel like she was helping? That Webby?

The girl in his lap uncurls, looking up at him before staring wide-eyed at their two companions, “you see Webby too?”

“We can’t see her,” Alice shrugs, lifting her head from Ethan’s shoulder though still looking almost dead on her feet, “she wasn’t in my head until this morning, but I forgot about it until we got attacked and she started talking.”

Danny rubs at his eyes, “she said she can’t talk to us normally cause we’re not completely open-minded, but when we were panicking we managed to reconnect because we were looking for any way out; she can’t talk to us now though, not with Hannah being her point of contact and the whole reason we were ‘picked’ in the first place.”

He and Hannah look between the two and something in the back of Ethan’s head tries to squeeze itself to the forefront. He thinks they’re words, maybe pictures or feelings, but it’s the same feeling as knowing a word you want to use but not knowing the exact word; it’s frustrating and confusing, and Ethan barely knows what to believe anymore - plus if Alice and Danny can do things just by being connected to Hannah (or... or Lex maybe) so lightly, what does that mean for Ollie? What does that mean for _him_?

“She didn’t say much, just said she helped enhance something we were already good at so that we’d be able to get through this and find a way to help her natural connections. Danny got really good at remembering things,” Alice says, smiling slightly.

“Feels a little useless next to you.”

Hannah pulls her hands into the flannel sleeves and stands up on the step just below the one Ethan sits on, her leg touching his as some kind of connection.

“You... _blend_ ,” she states slowly, looking at Alice.

The other girl smiles a little bigger now, nodding, “I guess managing to mingle with so many crowds comes in handy.”

Ethan inhales, dragging his hands over his face, “okay- um- I’m... not going to ask anymore questions for the sake of not losing my mind right now. But if- if whatever it is you’re doing is exhausting you, we should probably find some place safer to hide so you can stop and take a break.”

They get back onto solid ground without too much hassle, though, for their safety, Alice is insisting to keep her ‘aura’ or whatever up so that they can shut the fuck up at any point to hide from the singers. As a result, she’s leaning a lot of her weight on Ethan’s side, his arm around her waist with hers over her shoulders; Hannah’s still managed to get herself latched around his other arm and Danny walks on Alice’s other side in case she needs extra help, otherwise, he’s lookout.

They use the alleys for safety’s sake, moving as slow as they have to, it’s smarter than risking a stop in the middle of a main road where the singers could bump into them and discover them with or without Alice’s little cloak.

They come to a stop though, when they see a man. He’s tall, not quite as tall as Ethan but definitely older just by clothing alone. His back is turned to them, staring down the road they’ve just come out onto, but Ethan can tell his clothing is military of some kind, all black with a beret over tied up orange-ish hair.

“ _Soldier_ ,” Hannah mumbles, looking at the man and squeezing Ethan’s arm, “ _in his head_.”

He looks down at her and then to the man, back still facing them even with Hannah’s words. Something buzzes in the back of his head and his nose scrunches up at the sensation - _check on him_ \- the voice isn’t his, he knows it isn’t, but it feels like it’s part of him somehow, and he’s inclined to listen. He gestures with his head and gets Alice leaning on Danny instead (she’s looking worse so he needs to get this over with _now_ ), he makes sure Danny’s stable before slipping his arm out of Hannah’s hold and crouching down to her height, letting her grab his jacket sleeves before he speaks.

“Banana, I need you to stay here for a second, okay?”

She makes a panicked noise of protest, clinging to his leather tighter and shaking her head.

“I’ll be okay,” he promises, planting a hand on her head, on his hat, and smiling, “you’ll be okay too, magic hat, remember.”

Her eyes flick between him and the man, they gloss over for maybe a second and Ethan can only assume it’s Webby again before she nods and let’s go of him, one hand coming to hold his hat down and the other slipping into Alice’s offered one.

He avoids sparing a glance at the other two, if he does he might chicken out and something about this man feels magnetic. He takes a couple steps, making them loud against the pavement to try and get the man’s attention but still he doesn’t move; Ethan circles him, eyeing the rest of the street in case something comes out of nowhere. The man has his eyes open, but even with Ethan right in front of him they don’t focus, glossed over like Hannah’s had been not seconds ago; there’s blue slipping from the corners of his eyes, but Ethan doesn’t notice until his hand comes down on the man’s shoulder and his mind feels like it melts.

...

Everything around him is dark. He feels like he’s floating but when he looks down his feet are planted on something invisible. He notices there’s a glow around him, a white aura contrasting his black clothes and blacker surroundings.

He makes no noise as he moves, no matter how hard he tries to slam his feet against the nonexistent ground, nothing happens: no movement, no sound, no pain through his leg, nothing. It feels like hiding under his bed in the dark all over again, numbness overtaking anything else like the darkness cocooning him and leading him in.

He doesn’t know where he’s going, at least he shouldn’t, but his legs are almost moving of their own accord, pulling him one way, then another, until he comes to something else glowing in the darkness. It’s the man again, trapped in his own cocoon made of a blue, jello-like material; it’s aura makes Ethan uncomfortable, it’s heavy like a pile of really thick textbooks, but underneath there’s a warmth, the same magnetic feeling he’d felt from the man before.

_You have to help him, Ethan_

The voice isn’t his. It’s the same one from before, the same one he heard before he woke up yesterday (this morning?) and he gets to put a name to it: Webby. She’s real and his connection to Hannah, and Lex probably, drew her to him, just like it did with Danny and Alice.

_Do what you’re good at. Lend your strength to others and save the General_

General, huh, neat. He doesn’t know what that other thing means, but he nods anyway, running a hand through his hair and circling the jelly shell for a moment before standing and staring. He takes a deep breath - or, he thinks he does, every sensation is still so weird in here; feelings feel like colours and actions feel like feelings, and-

Anyway, he shakes his head, he takes a deep breath and shoves his hand through the cocoon, watching it connect with the General’s chest and seeing blue eyes meet his before every sensation melts together into a cacophony of chaos.

...

He comes back out with a gasp, feeling something push up his throat and gagging as bends over and hurls up a clump of blue goo. There’s a noise just next to him and he sees the General doing the same thing, much more dignified in his movements than Ethan. He feels something warm trickle down to his lip and realised only after reaching to touch it that his nose is bleeding, red (thank god), and perfectly normal - the blue shit wasn’t from him, it was from the General.

“Ethan!”

He’s on the floor and he doesn’t realise until Hannah’s in front of him and holding his face. He blinks, probably harder than necessary, but he doesn’t think he needs to throw up again but with Hannah pressing the sleeve of her flannel under his nose, he doesn’t think that’ll stop anytime soon.

“Young man,” the General squats down next to them and slaps a hand on his shoulder, “my name is General John McNamara and you just saved my life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise !


	4. The King’s Fortress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I needed to write some proper parent angst (mostly dialogue but still).
> 
> Plus Tedgens.

Henry hadn’t been expecting guests- well, that’s not _entirely_ true, Webby had warned him this morning that there’d be a surprise, but, he wasn’t exactly expecting so many people. Seeing Emma again was nice though, he always thought they got along.

The group of people she’d brought are down in the basement with him, most of them drinking their stress away. He’d had to kill that Charlotte woman and her husband an hour ago, the two of them completely infected and a risk to the rest of them, he felt somewhat bad, but it needed to be done for the sake of keeping the rest of them alive.

Emma has sat herself on one side of the room with Paul, the two of them conversing not quite as quietly as he thinks they think they’re being, while Bill nurses a weak drink in his hands by the bar. Ted sits on the sofa next to Henry, his phone on his leg and a bottle he’s barely taken a sip from in his hand.

Henry wants to make conversation, something about Ted is telling him the man isn’t normally as brash as he’s been acting, and how the others think he is, but all Henry can really do is watch. Watch Ted like he watches Emma and Paul and Bill, observe his ticks the others don’t seems to notice: the bounce of the leg the bottle rests on, the free hand swapping between turning his phone on and scratching at his face, neck, ear. He tries not to pry, but they’re barely a metre apart and it’s hard not to just notice things.

“I have to get out of here.” They all turn, looking to Bill who downs the drink in his hands and rushes out from behind the bar. He runs sweating hands down a dirty shirt and speaks again, “I have to find Alice.”

Ted pushes himself of the sofa, slamming the bottle in his hand onto the end table next to him and grabbing Bill’s arm, “don’t be an idiot.”

The other man glares, ripping away from Ted’s grasp, “she’s my _daughter_!”

“I’m serious, Bill, it’s a dumb fucking idea,” Ted growls, phone locked between pale fingers, “it has been nearly a day and your kid hasn’t called you, guess what? That means she’s probably fucking _dead_!”

Paul and Emma stand up, the former holding a placating hand out to the two men, “Ted, man, don’t be an asshole.”

“Oh I’m _sorry_ , I didn’t realise being realistic was me being an asshole, oh chivalrous one.”

Bill makes a noise of frustration, pulling at his hair, “you don’t understand, Ted-“

“No! I don’t think _you_ understand, going out there? You’ll only be getting yourself killed! And if, by some goddamn miracle, Alice is _alive_? What good are you going to fucking be if you end up like Charlotte?” Bill goes to say something again but Ted keeps going, fire not leaving his voice, “you think you’re the only ones with kids to worry about? My son, my _thirteen-year-old_ son, went out their with my nephew yesterday, my nephew who was with his girlfriend and her nine-year-old sister. Those kids? Those kids _I_ care about, but I haven’t heard shit from any of them, so I have to accept that I probably won’t _ever_ see them again and you have to do the same.”

Bill and Paul freeze, Emma looking between the trio of coworkers before locking with Henry’s. They share equally worried looks, especially as Bill aims to reach out to Ted but he pulls himself away like the former had only moments ago.

“Oh man, Ted- holy shit,” Paul runs a hand through his hair, “I had no idea.”

“No, you didn’t,” the man in question says, anger fizzled out in place of exhaustion and probably grief, “we’re colleagues, Paul, I know you barely even like me.”

Henry watches him stomp away upstairs, phone pushed into his pocket and the basement door slamming loudly. Any and all heat and venom leaves the room, Paul slouching back against the wall at his back while Bill drops his whole weight onto the sofa next to Henry; he, in turn, pushes himself to his feet and brushes down his blazer.

“I’ll go and make sure he’s... alright.” Or as alright as a man in his position can be.

The men don’t respond, but Emma gives a silent nod and turns to Paul, looks like she’ll handle the emotion down here. He follows Ted’s footsteps, closing the door much softer and heading back to the front foyer of his house and listening out for any particular noise. After a moment, he hears breathing, heavy, irregular breathing coming from his kitchen.

Ted is on the tile floor, phone lying next to him unlocked and on a page with a single icon in the corner, the picture on his background is clearly an old one, the Ted in it doesn’t have such a full moustache and he has a toddler with wonky glasses in his arms and a boy no older than eight hanging off the curve of his elbow, legs pulled up to keep him off the ground.

Ted has tears covering his face, though the second he sees Henry, he rubs his skin raw trying to get rid of them, locking his phone again to hide behind the facade of his basic lock screen.

“It’s alright to feel these things, Ted,” he says, keeping his voice soft and coming to settle on the floor in front of the other man, “you’re not wrong, to assume all your children are unsafe out there, but you’re allowed to not want to believe it.”

He hears a scoff, “what do you know?” Ted is back to being cold, being mean, but there’s a father in there, a father going through grief he doesn’t deserve.

Henry sheds his blazer, the heat of upstairs seeping through to his turtleneck, “I know what it’s like to care about people you think you’ve lost, and I know what it’s like to express such loss in a bad way.”

“I just-“ Ted sucks in a breath, roughly digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, “I don’t want to. Out of everyone in this stupid fucking town those kids deserve to die the least- I’m not perfect, sometimes I think I’m a shit dad but then I think of what could’ve happened if I left Ollie with his mom and- and it reminds me of what happens to Ethan and Lex and Hannah and I want to help them _so bad_ but I fucking can’t. And now- now they’re probably all out there like Charlotte and I can’t stop picturing it, I can’t stop seeing their _faces_ -“

Henry shifts to pull Ted’s hands away from his face, settling them in the small gap between their legs and keeping a hold of his wrists. He tries to smile reassuringly, he knows saying something Ted can’t believe right now isn’t going to stop his spiralling, may even make it worse, so he offers his presence, his contact, and hopes it’s enough.


End file.
